'A diaristic record of their relationship as a transgender couple whose bodies are transitioning in opposite directions (for Drucker from male to female, and for Ernst from female to male). As both subjects and makers of these photographs, Drucker and Ernst engage various elements of self-fashioning, representing themselves in the midst of shifting subjectivities and identities'.

Yesterday was the only day over the Easter weekend with a forecast of high probability of sunshine. It felt like pushing my luck going again so soon after last Sunday's trip out to Site B, and on a Saturday, too, when there's often workmen about, at least for part of the day. I'm going to get caught sooner or later, I suppose, and will get to see what happens. I left it till late afternoon, setting off at around four, after a morning and early afternoon matt white emulsioning stuff around the house, and with a two minute sit down in the garden first and a banana for energy for the cycle ride.

Like last time it was sometimes cloudy, which occasionally meant standing around waiting for the sun to pop back out. And as for those clouds getting in the way, they're never quite in the right place compositionally either, someone ought to invent something to fix that, like a small remote control, perhaps. Point, move, re-shape, that sort of thing, how hard can it be?

Illustration by Claudio Munoz
CROSS-DRESSING is on the rise among young Qataris. The local press
says that more tradition-minded locals are upset by the growing number
of young women affecting a masculine style of dress, baggy trousers,
short hair and deep voices. These women, who call themselves boyat,
which translates as both tomboy and transsexual (and is derived from
the English word boy), are being seen in schools and on university
campuses where some are said to harass their straiter-laced sisters.

In an episode of a talk show on Qatari television, called Lakom al Karar
(The Decision is Yours), a leading academic said that the “manly women”
phenomenon was part of a “foreign trend” brought into Qatar and the
Gulf by globalisation. Foreign teachers, the internet and satellite
television have been blamed. So have foreign housemaids, for badly
influencing children in their care.

The studio audience was divided over how to respond. Some called for
the death penalty for c…

It's a beautiful, sunny April day. I went out to site B today, about half an hour cycle ride. Everything was falling to bits, though; me (runny nose, streaming eyes, and only two tissues), bike (chain slipping, only one gear useable), shoes (one split), but after a couple of hours of taking pictures (and so at least alleviating guilt from not taking any) it was then really nice to just pause, and not to cycle home straight afterwards, but to sit at the top of the earth bank that surrounds site B, among the cherry trees. It was really nice, simply looking out, down through the trees, it was suddenly a little bit surprising. Not so much the view, which is not particularly scenic, obviously, after all it's just a construction site spread out below, with vast heaps of gravel, tons of debris and some deep-cut excavations with a few feet deep of shimmering, palest green run-off water, tinged in places with rust. The strangeness came from noticing that in the act of seeing I beca…

There's a hard-working cleaner in the evenings at the office where I work, in her sixties, originally from Eastern Europe. She gets treated by her older female, British born and bred manager in a generally inhospitable and cold manner, and that's at best, and at wost, with barely concealed scorn.
Immigrants, well the ones who aren't super-rich and actually have to go out to work, probably get to know well the different sides of human nature generally, be it blind reflex hostility or else unexpected moments of hospitality, a kind word, but perhaps the best they can hope for some days is just a blessed indifference.